Green Dragons, roleplaying and music-making

Music is everywhere

The LOTRO music system is one of the biggest draws of the game for many. This is how it was for me too back in the day, when I first took up the lute. Imagine, being able to play songs in-game? Playing in bands with others? Writing song lyrics and performing them? Being creative, having fun? Grand!

Over the last years, though, I have gradually developed a love/hate relationship with the LOTRO music system. Or perhaps not so much the system as the way the music community has developed.

Much of this is related to the sheer amount of music that is around today. Playing music was once a niche area in LOTRO, and concerts and performances added dramatically to the game because there were so few of them. Converting ABC files (or writing your own) and preparing to play synced music with others took a lot of effort, because the tool support was lacking. You had to put a lot of time into it, and only the most dedicated players were willing to do this. You couldn’t help but be impressed when you saw bands like The Shades perform one of their massive annual productions, because you knew, you just knew they had spent weeks getting ready for it.

Now, though? Converting music takes a few minutes, by using converters like Maestro or Fireferns. Preparing for synced play takes seconds, through plugins like SongbookBB. Everyone can do it. Everyone does it. They still spend a lot of time on it, because we have moved from preparation to performances. Many bands routinely perform weekly concerts. Mega-events with 20-40 bands, lasting whole weekends, pop up monthly (they keep growing in size and lenght too). Bands move from server to server to perform. Music is everywhere. There is no escaping it.

This is grand if music is your LOTRO endgame. Anytime you log in, you can go somewhere to dance and listen. There is always a venue where you can perform.

It is, however, uniformly a bad development for LOTRO roleplayers.

Roleplaying is nowhere

I have for years now run roleplaying events in LOTRO, on the Laurelin server. These are mostly public events, in the sense that we invite everyone to come along (at least if they play hobbit characters). My aim has always been to have inclusive events that sticks somewhat close to Tolkien’s lore, without overdoing it. People should be able to immerse themselves in the storytelling, but also have fun and socialize with others. RP newcomers and veterans alike are welcome.

This has usually gone very well, not least because Laurelin has a special RP policy for its players. Most notably, player names should be in line with Tolkien’s lore, and the /say channel is In-Character (IC). It cannot be stressed enough how much this has helped for roleplay immersion. Escaping chat about modern-day topics or that someone brought you coffee in real-life? Staying close to the in-game lore? Heaven.

For the longest time, people respected this policy, and the few offenses I saw against it was not really a problem. Lately, though, the RP policy is more or less routinely pushed aside. Player names are increasingly lore-breaky. There is more Out-Of-Character (OOC) chat in /say. Less players behave as though they are characters in Middle-Earth. They just use their in-game avatars for modern-day socializing and chat.

I guess some now will point toward the server consolidation process the last year as an explanation for this. When there are less LOTRO servers around, the ratio of roleplayers on Laurelin will be less than before. No wonder I have seen this development the last year, right?

No, not really. This started years ago. And it wasn’t the players looking for a new server home who were behind it.

It was the musicians.

One kind of event to rule them all

Not because they wanted to disrupt things for roleplayers, no no. However, the music community in LOTRO has developed a particular style of gameplay which is in many ways incompatible with immersive LOTRO roleplaying and storytelling. This includes:

Using real-world song lyrics, talking about the real-world bands performing the songs, etc.

Multiboxing for band playing, with one player controlling many characters by running multiple game clients. People can multibox all they want, of course. However, for a RP event, it gets somewhat creepy when half the crowd just stands there staring at you, not interacting with others.

Increasingly bizarre outfits/use of cosmetic items/pets in the audience.

Lots of comments on “hey, I saw you on server XX last week”, “I am player YY from server ZZ”.

Roaring, shouting, yelling, and generally behaving as wild and loud as possible.

In itself, this is not a “wrong” way to play the game. People obviously have fun doing this, it is social and it is easy to include others. In some cases, I can certainly participate in such things myself. Most servers don’t have a RP ruleset either.

The problem arises when this behaviour is brought into traditional roleplaying venues. It simply doesn’t mix well with events and communities aiming for immersion in Tolkien’s world. This is the challenge we have had on Laurelin the last few years, when more musicians hop between servers, without keeping local practices or policies in mind. And it is certainly felt at Green Dragon Friday as well.

Where everyhobbit knows your name

Green Dragon Friday (GDF) is probably the longest-running regular player event in LOTRO. It has been around for close to eight years, and it has always been a hobbit roleplaying event. Every Friday night, hobbits can come to the inn in Bywater to meet other hobbit roleplayers, talk about the latest hobbit news or share a story or riddle.

Music has always been an important part of the event. Back in the day, though, it was more small-scale and intimate (solo songs) compared to the 8-member behemoth band performances we sometimes see today. Often, the latter demand so much coordination (not to mention setting up multiboxing alts) that they don’t allow for neither hobbit lyrics nor audience interaction from the band. Then it gets too performance-oriented for me (although, I have certainly done my part in pushing large performances too over the years). Add in some of the noisier aspects from the music events as discussed above, and GDF fast moves away from the hobbit roleplaying it was meant to enable. Everyone wants to play ABC files, but no-one volunteers stories and poems or roleplays around the recent news. Then it ends up like “just another music event”.

In the Grand Order, this has been cause for some worry for a long time, because we see that the roleplaying routinely gets pushed aside because of player music. Traditional roleplayers stop coming to the event or are around much less than before.

The result is that we will look for ways to move GDF back to its roots. A likely outcome is that this will come at the expense of the amount and type of music played at the inn. However, no decisions have been made yet, and I’d love to get input from others as well.

In the meantime, please keep the GDF guidelines in mind. This is really the guidelines we have had for years now. Some of our regular patrons break them regularly, though, so perhaps this is a good time to brush up on them? By following them, you help enable an immersive roleplaying area that many appreciate.

Green Dragon Friday guidelines

Please keep it lore-relevant

The guiding principle for Green Dragon Friday is this: Your actions should be suitable for a hobbity lore-relevant night at the inn.

Remember that the /say channel on Laurelin is in-character, which means that it should only be used for dialogue about things that have a home in Middle Earth, and the Shire in particular

((Using double brackets like these is no excuse to break this)). The brackets only show that you are aware of the chat policy, but decide to break it anyway. The one exception we do is for announcements of local times for events, like /servertime, UK time or similar.

If you need to speak OOC to someone, just send them a nice /tell, don’t involve the rest of us in /say

Don’t use emoticons like :) ;p, or modern acronyms like LOL, BRB, WB or similar, in /say. They distract from the immersion. If you need to go AFK, just say “Oh, I need a quick break” instead of “((afk))”

The servers you play on are not IC. If you say you’re from Crickhollow, we assume you come from Buckland. You didn’t meet someone on Landroval last week, because that would mean you were partying on the back of a huge eagle.

Please remember that Green Dragon Friday is an event for and by hobbits

For lore reasons we ask that men and elves stay away from the event the two hours it lasts. It has always been this way, and it will be so in the future too. The players behind elf/men characters are usually grand and friendly, but the event changes immediately when they are present, turning it away from the hobbit centricness we are looking for. However, if you have quests inside the inn (like the Inn League Run), you should of course come inside and finish those even though you play elves/men.

We don’t use an “honorary hobbit” system for tall folks.

Dwarven visitors are as always welcome at the Dragon.

Please note that GDF is not a musical concert

While music has always been important at GDF, this is not a concert where you should perform all sorts of OOC music.

Try keep your music choices and lyrics somewhat suitable for a night at a hobbit inn. Folk/celtic songs is a good starting point. Drop the blatantly modern-day pop songs, unless you manage to hobbitify them through the use of innovative and in-character lyrics.

If you’re in the audience, don’t yell out the real-world name of a song you recognize or the band playing it in real-life. That’s an immersion-breaker right there.

Remember to keep your music performance short (10 minutes is the absolute max, incl. setup, but less is better). Keep things moving fast, that allows for more chat and interaction with others during breaks.

Even though you sign up to play, sometimes there are so many offers we cannot accomodate all. Other entertainment offers than music-playing will be given priority at GDF.

Please do something else for entertainment than playing music

Recite a poem, tell us a riddle, share some news from the Shire, or give us a short story instead of just going into ABC playback mode. That’s more fun from a RP perspective.

Consider forgetting about dancing near the entertainment rug. Bring someone to a quiet corner elsewhere in the inn to discuss ale prices, the local crops or the weather. That gives a nice hobbit inn feel!

Please participate

It is somewhat creepy when the room gets filled with dual-boxing uniformed alts who just stand there staring at each other.

Consider attending with just one main character, and join the fun when others try to interact with you.

Please be mindful of what is going on in the inn

If someone is standing up to recite a tearful poem about lost hobbits on the Greenfield, it sort of undermines things if you merrily waltz into the inn/around the room, saying hello to each and hugging everyone in the process.

Make the chat box space count, keep the signal to noise ratio high! You don’t need to go and individually greet all 20-30 persons in there when you arrive, that just clutters up the chat box for everyone. Don’t spam emotes.

Above all, have fun!

No-one will yell at you for simple mistakes, but try to keep the points above in mind as you join the fun. That makes the evening grander for everyone!

It is good to have choices *smiles*. That’s what worries me now, though, because I see the choices disappear.

There is always the danger that posts like mine stir up the whole ‘RP server battle’, for instance between Landy and Laurelin (lord knows there has been enough of that in the past). That’s not my intention. There are good and bad things both places.

My general worry is related to event homogenization, in that every player event turns into a screaming jumping music performance where anything OOC goes, and where Tolkien-ish immersion is shoved to the side. In the past, it was possible to run public player RP events without this happening. This is harder now, even on Laurelin, and I think this is in part due to the influx from the massive amount of music events around. Switching players out of OCC music mode and into IC hobbit RP is difficult.

I too agree 100%! Green Dragon Friday has always been special to me since I first stumbled upon it. Though until this last year or so my attendance was spotty, I’ve checked in from time to time over the last five years and I’ve seen the event’s character change over time to a much more ‘concert like’ event that my early recollections. We could do with a couple more Matzos (if I recall the ol’ curmudgeon’s name right) spicing up the event with some actual RP.

Ha aye, we had a few grumpy hobbits at GDF over the years: Matzo, Saphyre, Jimothy and more. Them always liven up things. I wonder how a full-blown grumpy hobbit would be received these days, though, now that everyone is so nice to each others all the time *grins*

Another here that agrees. The names have gotten so bad on Landy, that it is not even a RP-Encouraged anymore. The musical events are composed of bands playing every song under the sun, no matter if it sounds good or not. A lot of people just mass-converting using the tools without caring at all about the end product.

Well, I’m going to stick my neck out here and probably get it chopped off!

I’m not quite as agitated about things as you Lina though I do agree with a lot of what you say.

I have an absolute bugbear about using the original lyrics if they break immersion; I don’t want to hear about, say, cars in Lotro. Either play it as an instrumental or find a way of changing the lyric to be about stable horses. Or write completely new lyrics. Nor do I want to hear lyrics in foreign languages unless on the appropriate server.

But as to music, I have no objections to bands playing pop, rock, jazz or anything else as long as it is well done. We have no idea what might be considered lore appropriate music if, indeed, there is such a thing.

I too dislike alt bands at events like GDF although if someone wants to do an alt concert at, say, The Pony then fine.

I appreciate what you try to do at GDF and we have discussed it before. The problem is the event becomes what the audience wants and currently there is a lack of true role players. Whether that is because the event is not what they want or the event has changed since they left is a moot point. Or, they left Lotro anyway as many have done – 9 years is plenty long enough to get bored!

Bottom line, for me, is I only play these days for the music and social side. I do not quest at high level and do not see that changing. If there was no music and related events then I would likely stop playing. And there are quite a few others who think the same way.

By the way, if you see Master Pipes behaving inappropriately please tell him. He won’t be offended.

I’ve no intention of trying to chop at anyone’s neck, but I do have a couple of comments. I really don’t mind what genre music comes from either, so long as it is done well, but I do think we can take a good guess at what would be considered “lore appropriate” music by going back to the numerous songs Tolkien peppered LOTR with and considering the tune that would go with those words.

Otherwise, how folks have fun in LOTRO is a very personal matter of course, but at least for me the adventuring at high levels is still quite fun. If you should have a change of heart and want to do some exploring and would like company give me a shout!

Different opinions are of course valid and available, so no neck-chopping here!

I do disagree with the point that the event becomes what the audience wants, though. Currently, it becomes what it is because some in the audience behaves a certain way, and this impacts on others who want it to run a different way. Including those who organize it. And that’s no good for anyone involved.

Keeping events roleplay-centric is of course the harder way, but we have always managed to in the past. The RP policy is there for a reason – it has long enabled us to run public in-character events with a minimum of fuzz. Similarly with the GDF guidelines. This has changed in recent years, and that is partly because of the way the music culture has developed and spread across servers.

People may well say that they won’t play “if there was no music and related events”, but there is seriously no lack of that in LOTRO these days. I want there to be an alternative to this, though, something that caters for other interests. Because others feel the same way about the roleplaying aspect of the game. That’s what motivated the post.

The alternative is that we a) stop doing public events, but rather move behind closed doors in the homesteads. Or b) we nuke the event and stop playing the game. And those are not really tempting options at all.

I think you misunderstood me a little, Lina. My comment about not playing was related to music in general across Lotro and not to events like GDF. I think your post can be read as something related to GDF and something related to music in general. The responses are different.

If we are only talking about GDF then of course you must organise it as you will and have done successfully all these years. And yes, recently there have been moments of concern in The Green Dragon. Generally though I think it works provided we have hobbits willing to rhyme and riddle and tell tall tales as well as the music. It’s a nice balance most weeks but it does depend on exactly who is attending at any one time.

I came because I enjoyed the atmosphere and made a deliberate decision to limit my band to 4 players maximum and 10 minutes playtime. Somehow it doesn’t feel right when you see a big band (and/or alts) at the rug.

Aha! Well, yes, I admittedly find the way that music events have developed to be outside of me own cup of tea. That doesn’t mean that they’re the wrong thing to do in-game, or that others should not enjoy them (the music system is a special thing).

For me, though, music events so rarely enhance roleplaying these days. They often used to in the past, and given the central place music and song has in Tolkien’s works, it’d be a shame if we lost that.

Fredin here, I agree 100% with Lina and I’m glad that I now know there are others who feel this way!

I’ve always enjoyed being part of the Order and the other regular Shire role players are all a friendly bunch, but for me the music system (as impressive as it is) is just a bit of a novelty (again for me personally) and I favour conversations and player character development role play any day.

I was hugely impressed the first time I came to GDF and the jumping song at the end made me laugh my head off, I thought it was all brilliant! But I just don’t go anymore because there isn’t room for conversation, to get to know other hobbit beyond what is in their bio. I would love nothing more than to spend a few hours chatting away with someone who perhaps I don’t normally talk to and find out their hobbit loves apples or hates frogs! I always think of things I want to add to the story behind Fredin but I never get to share them because no one ever asks (and I’m not just going to start waffling on about myself because that’s rude).

Now I respect and admire all the effort that goes in the music and performances, I really do. But if they were a little less frequent, I would enjoy them a lot more! That’s not to say that music should be less frequent. If Lina, Rubysue and I were sat having a brandy and Potty was stood next to us playing a little tune then that would be great! A few hobbit drinking and listening to their friend play seems very Tolkien immersive to me.

I honestly don’t have much to suggest as a solution but perhaps if we arranged more of an afternoon tea/supper event maybe once or twice or month that was aimed towards chit chat and storytelling and such, it would allow more of the traditional role players to come out of the woodwork and enjoy themselves?

[I have to admit my first visit to GDF was as a lanky-limbs, an old beardy chap who was wandering through the Shire. I was intrigued and rolled a hobbit to come back and enjoy it properly].
Sounds to me as if it might be time for Ponso to make a return, if folk have a mind to hear his ‘pomes’. After the epic ‘Ponso and them Dwarfies’ I wondered if I had overdone it a bit! I’d be very happy to reprise some old favourites and get writing some material. As you say, plenty of other venues for performing music, too, although Penina has always written new lyrics for ‘borrowed’ songs.
Very happy to keep RP real.
Ponso

Finding myself with quite a lot to say, I’ll nevertheless try to limit(tm) myself a bit, at least in this first post.

We are fortunate to have many regular, inclusive, RP-centered events in our Shire: Green Dragon Friday, the Yard Party, OAKS, The Hobbit Market.These are all mainly in character AFAIC because we are there and we set an eggsample.

By the way, if Mr. Fredin and others need a place to socialise and chat, come to the Yard Party! About half of them have no Featured Band, and many Featured Bands have few or no lyrics to spam the chatbox, so there is plenty room for socialising and it has more space than the Dragon.

And the Dragon is special! By keeping it Hobbit-only it has an important role in defining and preserving Hobbit Culture (Yes, I know about the Dwarves and personnaly find a Dwarf slamming his shield into my back as I’m dancing, or 10 Dwarves loudly discussing their Kin business just off stage, both lore-breaking and more disruptive than someone talking OOC about their laundry). And so we must strive to preserve this specialness.

But also there must be room for diversity. The Lore is different things to different people. What I think of as The Lore(TM) are mainly the two books: The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings.Others would include works not published by Tolkien, but attributed to him, e.g. he Silmarillion. Further, The Lord of the Rings is also a film, and also a game and these many realities are somewhat at variance with each other.

And so each of us cherry-pick, from the lore (and from the Code of Conduct), what suits us. For eggsample, I find very little support in The Lore(TM) for the eggsistence of Singing Badgers and so it is reasonable for me to view an adult Hobbit believing in these as I would an RL adult believing in Santa Claus. YMMV. LotR (book) has better support for the notion of parallel universes than for Singing Badgers.For another eggsample, we in the Shire are certainly not conforming to Tolkien’s gender stereotypes.

And I could make a long, long list but the gist of it is we must allow for all our differing, but well-meant interpretations of the Lore.

Any song, tale, riddle etc we perform (or witness) is, a mediation between Tolkien’s universe and the beholder, and so works best if it is both true to the lore and at the same time of a nature which its public understand. And so I think post-medieval music has its place too (and I remember when first I heard the Badgers play Led Zeppelin and found it uplifting and inspiring). Also from a personal point of view I find it much easier to make lyrics to music what I can relate to.

Hm, that’s more than enough for a frist post.

PS: I have absolutely nothing against people singing in various languages, in fact I like it for variety. Ought we forbid to sing in Sindarin? French? etc….

I think my views of the RP-centricness of current Laurelin Shire events are somewhat less positive than your own. It’s not that there is no RP, but at least for me, way too often it gets undermined by the blatantly OOC stuff. Not just at the Dragon, but at the other events too. And this is not because people go in with the aim to disrupt things. They are just not that into the immersion game that some of us are. Other opinions may apply, of course!

As for lore, of course we adapt and twist and cherry-pick a bit. It’d be boring to just sit around reciting the books, grand though they are. So we need to do some concessions with the source material, and that’s all good: More hobbits go on adventures out of bounds, females are rather more active than in the books, we eat a lot more pie than book hobbits do (they’d probably go for seed cake or similar instead), etc. No problem at all! What I’d like to see less of is the clear references to real-life stuff, or things (technology, for instance) that have no place in Middle Earth at all.

Since you mentioned singing badgers: That was basically our way of writing “OOC” music into the game back in the day, by making a story background that people could choose to believe in if they wanted to, and by making it clear that the music played would not be strictly ye olde celtic folk. What we did, though, was to tailor the lyrics to fit into the game world.

Storywise, we usually offer enough wriggle-room for folks to roleplay around this: Some belive these badgers exist, others scoff and roll their eyes. Grand! That’s how it’s supposed to work, because it offers an option for interaction between players, for driving a story along, for getting beyond simply saying “hullo” and “bye” to each other. And yes, the story is whimsical, but not necessarily more so than Frodo singing about the man in the moon coming to the inn for an ale. Or Sam reciting poetry about a lad kicking a troll (and breaking his leg) because the troll gnawed on the bones of his nuncle.

So it is grand to tailor the lore. It is, however, good to have some fundamentals that work as guiding principles. The hobbit characteristics described in the books are a good starting point. As for the Dragon, the important guidelines has long been that it is a hobbit event (with dwarves welcome), that it should be primarily Shire-oriented (but not exclusively), and that all the Laurelin RP policies apply (it really goes without saying – they are serverwide). The latter, among other things, means no OOC chat.

And that’s where things sometimes go off the wheels nowadays. My explanation for this is the music event culture and server hopping nature that is taking over most LOTRO events. It’s not only this, of course, and we’ve certainly done our own things to help enable this development, but I really feel that event homogenization is a main culprit. Right now, many of us feel that this is pushing a previously predominantly hobbit IC roleplaying area into OOC hit parade central, where RP variety is slowly strangled under a ton of music.

The tricky balance here is to keep things friendly and good-natured, also for newcomers. We could police things harder, but that’s not really that much fun for those of us who come for the RP fix on Friday evening. Still, me and a few more feel that something needs to be done. We just haven’t figured out the details yet. Well, besides writing somewhat angsty blog pieces about it!

Right, I’m going to double post, keep the sort-of-digressions here and put the more constructive bits in the main discussion thread and will try to be brief (I may not succeeed in that)

As for pies vs. seed-cakes, Bilbo serves mince-pie, pork-pie and apple-tart (as well as seed-cakes) to Thorin’s party at the start of The Hobbit, so pies are certainly valid, lore-wise (I know this because I made a song about that party earlier this month and looked up what was served). Though it’s true there is much obsession with pies and I think one reason is, the word ‘pie’ rhymes easily fand is easy to fit into songs and verses.

Surely The Cow Jumped Over The Moon song and Sam’s poem aboutkicking stone Trolls were clearly understood as fiction, both by the tellers and their audience (even if the Troll rhyme was a reference to real events)? Anyway i was just bringing singing badgers (and in particular mature Hobbits believing in their eggsistence) up to make a point about cherry-picking because I think it only proper that we eggstend the same amount of leeway to others which we allow ourselves.

I think we do extend that leeway related to lore, though. We’re not looking for Tolkien expertise. The few lore absolutes at GDF are related who should attend and that the news section should be primarily Shire-based, and this is because we really want this to be a hobbit event.

But apart from that? You have adventurous hobbits regaling stories about their travels in far-off Milkwood, hobbits zip to and from Bree on a regular basis, there is a newspaper printed in the Shire, real-life musicians are converted to in-game alter egos through subtle name changes, and so on. That’s not really a problem, because there is an effort made to make it fit in a Middle Earth setting. Most of us accept this, play along with it, do it ourselves. This approach has worked remarkably well over the years. Laurelin, and the hobbit community in particular, is the one place where I have seen IC roleplaying work in an online game.

The OOC things I am concerned about is when this effort is not made at all. When stuff the players do in real-life are brought into the game, with our without brackets. When someone cries out that they heard a particular song played at a party they attended in real-life. When someone runs off to make a telephone call with ((phone, brb)). When game mechanics like stats, levels and so on are directly referenced in /say, or when someone talk about the other classes they play. And so on. That’s when the immersion really breaks. And there is more of it now than there ever was back in the day.

I also echo Miss Lina’s concerns. The GDF is unique and therefore very special and I applaud Lina for her efforts in running it.

The first time I ever came to GDF it was as an elf who played with Gennetta. I was allowed to play on that occasion but Lina explained very politely that it was a hobbit event. I went away and rolled Allegretta.

I used to turn up every Friday and loved it – I enjoyed the riddles and stories; and would wait patiently for Ponso’s next episodes (and how I miss those pomes – come back Ponso, please!). The newts was a time for us all to sit down and listen and we met our friends there. Even the tradition of sitting for pomes seems to be missed by some now.

Due to changes in my life I cannot always make it on Friday and I’d still like to be there, but…

The GDF has changed. Maybe it was inevitable with the server merges and with the ease of use of the ABC system. It feels to me that there are some people churning out tunes without putting much effort into it. If you can enter lyrics into Poetical you can edit the clearly OOC references. My opinion is that converting music has become easy whilst writing poems or stories is just too much effort that some are not willing to put in. We do not come into game to hear our own personal favourite tunes from the outside world but to join in and entertain each other.

I find that some hobbits come into the GDF just to play their own music with little or no desire to listen to others. They come in, play their songs then disappear straight away, or come just to promote their latest event. I hear that some are now logging out whilst in the room rather than walking out of the Dragon first! (I still take my cloak and hang it up in the lobby, and then put it on again on leaving, but once came into the pub with my shield and sword equipped – luckily I was reminded by friends). Yes, sure, we all make mistakes and I am still new to RP but it is about intent – I am a forgetful hobbit, but my intent is to play in character. Kind hobbits will remind one discreetly and a good RPer will remedy the situation in an appropriate way.

I thought the idea of solo and duo nights a great idea; very much in keeping with the idea of a pub and I found that it spurred me on to write poems rather than relying on playing as our trio.
The ultimate insult to the character of the GDF to me has to be a night when we turned up and there were 7 or 8 uniformed bandshobbits taking up the space by the side of the fire. They did not interact at all with the rest of the community and it turned out they were a multibox band. I don’t know how you can stop multiboxers but I wish we could.

It is a development that has happened over time, and us old-timers have certainly played a part in pulling it that way. The Badgers playing up to 10 musicians at the same time, for instance, going for that wall of sound rather than a lighter touch (although we don’t use multiboxing). Multiboxing is not a wrong thing per se, but it doesn’t mix well with an inn night setting based on dialogue-based interaction between players.

So, we’ll look for ways to recapture that old-school feel. We have some ideas, but any suggestions folks have for that, please volunteer them!

Oh, and aye, people shouldn’t feel like they have to be expert roleplayers to come to the Dragon. As long as they make an effort and are willing to dip their feet into the strange world of hobbit in-character RP, we’re more than happy to interact with them!

It is always fun when Linno remembers about GDF in time to make ir (sadly that happens more rare lately). It’s a bit sad if multiboxing is skipping the joy of such hobbitsy thing as GDF, but hopefully we may make it thry this change.

I have to agree with what you say Miss Lina, there have been times when I’d not come to the Dragon because it was just going to be over run with bands once more. I like a tune as well as the next Hobbit, but sometimes…. sometimes… oh but we can’t all harken for the old days.

I remember well turning up and listening to olde Matzo grumble about lack of respect. how the others would do their best just to annoy him. Times change I know, but something should remain for that is what the heart of this event is.

I will be adding new stories to my folder, so If I am there please don’t hesitate to ask me for one – that’s if I haven’t contacted you afore hand. Currently I am working through the ones I’ve made over the years, as there are so many new faces – hopefully willing to share and grow as we all do.

Great article Miss Lina. Come from a non-RP world (Evernight), I still do agree with what you say. Evernight is no RP world, but the emotespam and use of pets inside buildings annoys me a lot. I concider myself a Role-player Light. Not always IC, but I use roads if they are there, I bow for people like Galadriel, or Elrond or Gandalf before speaking to them, stand in front of them so they can look me in the eyes, don’t stand in fires, mostly get off my horse when talking to an NPC, have clothes for town, fights, crafting… and I never wore arms in town. About pets in buildings. Why a giant shrew into AH? Why craft in full armour with a huge polar bear next to you. A little rabbit, okay, but please keep the lage animals outside.

So, back to what I want to say, I totally agree that you complaint about that, you being in an RP world. GDF sounds like fun, I read a lot about it over the years, don’t let the fun get taken away by ‘those’ people. I hop for you it will be like the ole days.

The tricky thing with roleplaying in LOTRO, at least if you want to go the book-based immersive route, is that you sometimes deliberately have to ignore certain things in the game. Things that will be perfectly natural to use for players who primarily play the game as it is. Pets, certain emotes, etc. are typical examples. They’re not wrong as such, but they aren’t a perfect mix for the kind of roleplaying I am into. Of course, we can turn off pet display, but it doesn’t really help when half the audience asks why you stomp around on their shrew…

I suppose I should have known that book immersion was a lost cause the first day I logged in and found that Turbine had populated the Shire with elven NPCs (Haerel walking around in Michel Delving) *grins*

Disclaimer: Very long comment ahead, after some investigating I figured a way to have it posted (in heavily edited form). Anytime you see […], indicates a section of the original comment that can be fully read over here –> http://pastebin.com/SAHuFK5S. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience, and the extremely long message overall, but this writing by Lina and the comments really made me want to share my perspective on the matter!

Wince and cringe I still do for a few moments when reading these sort of things, Miss Lina, for I think for the last year or so now my settling down into the Laurelin server community and it’s roleplaying folks have likely been on the part because of music events and particularly the public ones where Tall Folk aren’t mentioned as being asked to stay away, or whenever the event isn’t advertised as ‘Elf-only’, ‘Dwarves-only’, ‘Hobbits-only’, and so forth.

However, I feel a big part of me also greatly understands that the creativity and self-sustaining energy that keeps such a warm RP community on Laurelin going is in large part due to those very players whom do take organizing events and RP culture to be more preferred with lore and immersion — as yourself and many of the Grand Order of the Lost Mathom do, as well as many others whom write to the Bramblebury Gazette with new events and news.

[…]

…Historical Field Trips, Summer Poetry Competitions, Wassailing around Shire Farms to wish for a good harvest and crop for the coming season, the bi-weekly Michel Delving Hobbit Market, the weekly Green Dragon Friday (before it turned to a lesser focus about chatter and socializing as Hobbits might do at an Inn, such as in this video -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZUxc-Cb5LM, and instead seemingly more about it having turned into ‘just another music event’ so I’m apparently reading from this post and the comments)… these are events, and organizations/individuals behind them, from my perspective — that have immensely influenced the flourishing of the sort of strong Hobbit RP community and Hobbity-mannerisms and Laurelin Hobbit-friendly lore/culture that I am so lucky to see today when logging on.

[…]

Thanks to early folks like Silon, and Toadflax, my very first attendances to music-RP combo events on Laurelin offered me a very welcoming first step into slowly learning more and more about MMO roleplaying, and especially the vein of it that exists in LOTRO, on the Laurelin server. From there I was able to step little by little, with ginger steps, into forming a better idea of what sort of character I wanted my Captain to be, what kind of events and roleplaying I would like to learn/engage/participate more in over time, and even a more firm understanding about myself as an MMO gamer, and the kind of likes/dislikes and reasons for enjoying MMOs in the first place. Not to mention I think it has a tremendous impact on my real life in further identifying the sort of things I enjoy, the people I like to be around, and other small things here and there about what I enjoy as a human being; what I want to pursue and develop as hobbies, interests, and more.

[…]

… It isn’t lost on me that a crucial element of these fine roleplaying communities within the Laurelin server forming and sustaining themselves for so long are whatever energy/fuel/passion/self-sustaining engagement that the dedicated Roleplayers and event organizers draw from month after month, year after year — even as things evolve, change, and new problems and challenges arise (or reappear in greater strength, or slightly different forms). This phenomenon Lina and many others in the comments have described being one of them.

[…]

It is that strong Hobbit culture, infused from the years of events, activities, and people from kinships that encourage Hobbit roleplaying nuances and spirit — that have gone onwards to contribute more widely to an immensely pleasant experience for the wider Laurelin RP community; when those Hobbit characters do cross the paths of other races at happenstance meetings, events, and such.

I encourage folks like yourselves whom feel this way to continue pushing, nurturing, developing, growing, fostering… whichever similar word you please… towards a direction where the ‘Hobbity’ spirit of events originally imagined and sustained like Green Dragon Fridays once again returns… not by force with any luck, or heated exchanges, but simply by you Hobbit roleplayers being yourselves… doing what you can to politely remind and and encourage lore-friendly atmosphere for those attending your events, and to get those whom are lore-friendly Hobbits to come out to your events and become regulars themselves — further growing a positive feedback loop, to use them business/corporate/spiritual terms…

[…]

The part the Hobbit community here on Laurelin has played in contributing to such a fun experience and atmosphere for an MMO server has been great, and especially so for the Hobbit roleplaying community itself. I have repeated myself several times throughout this extremely long message, but in the end I hope many like myself whom appreciate the passion and effort you folks put into your characters and events can support you the best we can, in whichever ways we can that are appropriate to our strengths and our own passions. From directing new players that seem promising roleplayers to kinships that have such passionate individuals well-versed in lore but welcoming to newcomers, to not attending certain events with out-of-place characters, to encouraging /say chat to stay in-character through our own character’s dialogue and words, even when they have just ‘heard’ someone else complain about yesterday’s hockey game and the price of computer hardware these days in roleplay-enforced chat (/say).

Or anything else that comes to mind, for that matter. There’s something pleasing about using your imagination and creativity to bring a character to life, and to interact with others to further encourage a mutual atmosphere of lore-friendly, roleplaying options for people to choose from if they wish. Step onwards to create new stories and return old traditions where applicable — you folks of the Hobbit roleplaying community are especially imaginative, and quick on the wits. Something good will arise when you brainstorm and work together — unless that’s deciding on whom is doing dishes…. I’m told!

Thanks for yer perspectives! As always, there is a tricky balance to be found between roleplaying and friendly/accessible social interaction between players. Hopefully we will find a good way to cover both going forward *smiles*

First and foremost, lead by eggsample! Which some of us are already doing, kudos to you!

As for music, what would you consider most appropriate and in keeping with the GDF spirit and Hobbit culture? Is it better to play a reel (perhaps even as an instrumental even if it originally has words), or e.g. a song telling a Hobbity story even if it is contemporary(e.g. a 7-part Black Sabbath tune telling of how Bilbo entertained Thorin and his party)?

Further, yes, we can go for less music and more other stuff, like tales. This may mean some of our regular performers can no longer get a spot each and every week, they will just have to live with that.

Then it becomes necessary to have other ‘content’ to fill the event: poems, stories, games etc. These, like song lyrics, take a lot of time and effort to prepare and so I hope all you who say you miss this or that will get to work and come up with something. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it takes a LOT of time. But if noone does it, it won’t be there. And too much repetition is boring – it’s a great joke to waste five minutes or more talking about turnip juice but after the first five occurrences of this, it is no longer amusing. So, anything you desire to eggsperience at GDF: Try making a contribution yourself! We are a kind and appreciative audience. And come forth! If you wait until you’re invited, how will we know you have something for us?

There is little to be done about the emote spam, with 20+ Hobbits present, emotes will clutter the chat window. Filter away emotes, or use Babble!

As for going to the side and having a separate conversation in /say, this is somewhat impractical in such a confined space as it is hard enough already to follow what goes on around the rug and more conversation threads is hard on the chat windows (look how hard it is sometimes to follow your own line of conversation at the Market)

Multi-boxing, I am not fond of this (I use it for rehearsals, and very sparingly at music performances) and would love to have it understood that it is not accepted at Green Dragon Friday (even if it means GDF will then miss out on some popular Shire bands). Just forbid multiboxing performers at GDF. No eggseptions.

Finally keep in mind that this is a transitional time with many forced eggsiles still finding their feet. I suggest any newcomers are welcomed as Good Faith players until such time that they may prove otherwise.

Post-finally, how do we communicate this debate to the general public? Not everyone reads this blog. The Gazette and Archives are in-character. The LOTRO Forums is the domain of evil Trolls. Unfortunately I have no good suggestions for this.

Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll mull over it for a while still, but it is likely there will be a follow-up post where others can give direct feedback to the input and suggestions I have had over this.

Short-ish reply to some of your points:
– I think celtic/folk music is a good starting point, so I’d love to see more of that. Of course, many songs outside of this tradition can also be tailored into hobbitness. It usually means a bit more effort than just firing off the ABC, though. The player could give a short intro, that they heard this particular piece on their travels and wanted to hear what us hobbits feel about it. Or that lyrics are tailored to cover themes of hobbit interest.

– One direction I’d love to see is that the event gets less “entertainment”-based and host-dependent. Music is sometimes the weapon of choice when we want to pad things out to last a full two hours. Instead, we can drop the expected length, even shorten the event, but open up for more interaction and dialogue, with some entertainment added. Then we just stop if we wrap up things earlier. Or we could start at the Dragon and have some fun there, but open up to head elsewhere in the Shire if the RP stories take us that way.

– Multiboxers don’t do anything wrong, but agreed: many aspects of it doesn’t fit well with interactive roleplaying.

– We’ll have to look into how we spread the word. It might actually lead to a short period of more in-game OOC, when we point the visitors to summaries of these discussions (or, for that matter, we send letter in-game to point them to the necessary information).

Finally, GDF has always been welcoming to newcomers, and I’d like to keep that aspect of the event going. So we’re unlikely to club players over the head there *grins*.

I agree with Toadflax here on near enough all points! My only slight disagreement is being able to have your own conversations in /say. Whilst I appreciate this can take up room in the chat box, personally I always use chat bubbles so if myself and a few friends are stood by the bar having a drink, it’s easy to see who is saying what. I know this has a knock on effect for crowds listening to an individual but you know, you’re never going to be able to please everyone. As I’ve mentioned, not having conversation in an Inn just seems unrealistic to me, both in Tolkien ‘s world and in ours!

A side note on multi boxing, I agree 100% that it shouldn’t be used for music BUT I think it can be a very good tool for RP. As a couple of people know on the Grand Order, I also have Tedegar, a low level guardian who I role play as a Bounder. He only comes out every now and then at special events and festivals but he mostly just potters around, saying hello and having a drink, exactly like you would expect a Bounder/Watch-hobbit to do.

I see him as somewhere in between a player and an NPC, just there to add a bit of extra Hobbity presence to events!

One thing that really bugs me while we are all having fun at the Green Dragon & at other events is having all of our fun interrupted as you all are away of is having the Song Lyrics, Poetry, Stories, & the announcements interrupted by those in World Chat.
Also, I’d like to thank Miss Toadflax for her very helpful website that she provided, I did not know about this site, & I believe it will be very helpful for me & many other of my fellow RP’s.
Keep up the excellent job that your doing for up Miss Lina :)

I think you will find that many of us don’t follow the World Chat Channel *grins* It tends to distract from immersion for me, at least.

Alternatively, if you have room on your screen, you can run with more than one chat window open. Just put the world chat in a separate window, then disable it in your main window, and you’ll find it easier to follow what happens locally.

Years ago I spent a good amount of money obtaining a Codemasters account. I live in North America, but wanted to play on the official server for RP. Our North America servers were all unofficial. We even had an unofficial-unofficial server. I played on my North America account with my kids on Windfola, which always had outlandish discussions about goats on their glff channel. I played on Landroval too because it was interesting to people watch in Bree and see if you could find an actual roleplayer that might be interested in random walk-up roleplaying. I always felt that assembling a large amount of players and creating enormous amounts of lag with large music events was not roleplaying. It was and is what it is, an event (which is fun for character-watching) creating a large amount of lag.

So obtaining that Codemasters account was money well spent. I have mostly men and elves on that account, but created a wee hobbit that would sit in the back occasionally on Fridays and listen to all the gossip, chuckle at funny poems, and fell in love with how the event was organized. Everyone was valued there, they made you feel like family. I am extremely shy and have severe issues with anxiety. I do not take medications for my anxiety, so I have to push myself to try and fit into social situations without overdoing it. I do have to check my blood
sugars and make sure I eat properly, and for some reason, GDF is about the time I need to be checking on those things. When they said that our North American accounts could now roll a character on Laurelin, it actually made me cry a bit. It made no sense to subscribe to both accounts, so I decided to retire my elf and lady captain. I had my eyes set on making a hobbit who would attend GDF on my main account that had all the goodies.

I didn’t want to be concerned about a character that needed to worry about end game things. She leveled to 20 on task board things so she could be a busy bee with that awesome cloak and beautiful pony. She could write in her story that she didn’t want to leave the Shire, that would be a great excuse to keep her home baking pies. She did her best trying to be social and she made a lot of friends. I loved playing her so much, I leveled her way beyond level 20. She had many adventures, she even fell in love (In-characterly like of course).

My real life had me in charge of various family members whom I had to care for 24/7. This included a beloved pet who was ill for 17 months before he passed away a few weeks ago. Being able to come to GDF and immerse myself in my character helped me get away from things for an hour or two each Friday. I felt close to those other hobbits. So much so, that I tried to express why I was so sad OOC in whispers in brackets. None of the hobbits ever budged
on breaking immersion. They would be understanding and caring but it stopped there, so I learned not to do that again. That would make me sad and happy at the same time. Happy everyone still had a place to immerse, but sad they would not be my friend outside of the game.

I started to see over time things that happened at other servers slowly find there way to Laurelin. For instance, on another server, people would roleplay in a style where they do /me write an enormous wall of gray text that takes a long time for them to write. I prefer just talking to /say and only sprinking a small emote, like my character laughs, and only very seldom an actual /me emote. Such as /me whispers to her pony not to run off to that flower
patch. But in recent times, I come to visit on random characters and I see the walls of text have crossed the pond and now like to show themselves on Laurelin. A lot. No one on Laurelin will tell them not to do this, but somedays I do wish a brave soul would shout it out to them in brackets, since a lot of bracket writing has been happening as well.

There are other servers that have had travelers come and make Laurelin their home. They want their flavor of playing the game be accepted, so the flavor of Laurelin has changed. I am not picking on any server, but I have played on enough of them to know when I see something that did not happen on this server before, now happening.

While I am at it. Laurelin always loved visitors. As a guest you were invited to create something, so you too could be part of the server. However, I would see some who would say only they were experts in roleplaying and everyone needed to run an event a certain way. Would they flat out say this? No. But they would exhibit nuances which would make things hard for Lina to run a GDF. Lots of ((I am from another server, here is our events calender, etc.)) All of this in addition to things happening in real life made my anxiety go to places it never went before. I had to stop playing the game entirely and spend time in my own single player creative version of Minecraft.

At festivals I usually dust off a character or two and play with my kids sometimes. We had to migrate that fishing kin of ours to Arkenstone. They are grown people now, so I do not get much time with them. Then I will visit my most played and beloved roleplay characters. I am not even sure if I can do it anymore. Which is why they walk with their RP tags off. I would very much love to play them again, or make another character and keep that one at 20! 105 levels for those with time restraints is more anxiety for me to think about. To see someone whom I have admired for years be frustrated with running her events makes me a bit sad. There have been times when I would be on a random visit and get so frustrated, I just walked out of GDF and logged off. I was tempted to /me slams the door hard on the way out. But I didn’t. My little hobbit
is better than me in that respect, she just will say she forgot she was baking pies and had to run off to check them.

I love the concept of more tales, poems, and the like. But how will that work with the /me write a novel folks? Is there a way there could be a compromise? I love descriptive narrative, but when we all only have 60-90 minutes for events, only a few people will be able to be the writers there. I miss you all, and love you all, and hope you all find a solution so everyone has fun again.

Tee hee, the debate between /say and /emote-based players is a long one. I much prefer to keep things in /say myself, although with the LOTRO chat bug, that has its weaknesses too. We don’t really see many long-winded /e descriptions in the Shire on Laurelin these days, though, so that problem in particular seems to be less than it sometimes were.

As for stories/tales, we’d still need a time limit on things. I remember with horror a time in the past when someone told me he was a master storyteller and had a tale that’d make our hairs stand up, only to spend 45 minutes describing someone running back and forth between Bree and the North Downs. 10 minutes is a good guideline, but shorter is good too.

I hope we will still see yer around in the Shire regularly, miss Daysi! It always brightens the day to see yer around, so you should know that we appreciate it when yer spend yer time with us!

As a short(er) follow-up, I think it would be fantastic if more of your events advertised/planned throughout the year in the Shire (and by many various Hobbit-kinships, individuals and groups of Hobbit RP-roots) took a turn more towards less on music performances and more about actual engaging roleplaying experiences and immersive Hobbity-lore events.

For example, I really did love the idea of ‘Shire Picnics’ I remember reading about in the last year or two, where it sounded like Hobbits would just gather together and decide somewhere pleasant in the Shire to just eat, roleplaying eating food, sharing cooked food items (with tasty names!) with others and truly acting out a day out with Hobbits just enjoying a sunny day, green hills/meadows and scrumptious food with other fellow Hobbits! With any music being a very side/background thing going on, if at all… and certainly not the main ‘feature’ of the picnic.

I got a similar impression of what those Historical Field Trips by the Grand Order are supposed to be as well, at least in the years before the Grand Journey whisked an army of Hobbits away to march for Enedwaith — I still remember hearing how shocked that group of Elves in the Trollshaws when they spotted what appeared to them as a mini-army of Hobbits walking up the road! If I read the description of the Historical Field Trips from the lostmathom.org site correctly, it was also supposed to be a sort of yearly event where you simply invite/take Hobbits out on a stroll somewhere in the Shire, and then settling down to talk about the lore, history (or myths) surrounding a particular area, landmark, building, and so forth that the Historical Field Trip had chosen to focus on for that day!

The Summer Poetry Competions are fine examples of where music also isn’t the focus, but Hobbity-storytelling takes precedence, as well as similar ones by Miss Nannie that took place during the Haunted Burrow period. The Shire Wassailing, though more aligned with music to help move the event along, was still grounded in a Hobbity-lore by the fact the reasons for the event were to actually celebrate and go around ‘blessing/wishing’ good luck for the Shire crops for the season — that is a wonderful example where I felt both things Hobbits might actually do (wishing crops/farmers well for a good harvest) and using music as a supportive tool to help things move along, gave a chance for Hobbits to mingle and chatter as real Hobbits might about the season’s crops, the weather, hoping there would be a good bounty this year… while also going through ‘music + dancing’ periods in between as the group travelled from farm to farm.

I think if the Green Dragon Friday as a Hobbit-roleplaying event can realign (gently, without bashing heads, for sure!) more with these sort of atmospheric settings where Hobbits chattering throughout the room about whom they saw at the Bi-weekly market in Michel Delving earlier in the week, whom bought what Burrow recently, whispering about silly rumours about strange sounds coming from the Rushog Bogs by Needlehole, whom was seen prancing about the woods with Bounders chasing after them (there be that mysterious hooded-cloaked fellow in Budgeford still isn’t there?)… and all these sort of things are encouraged to happen as the main focus for the night, with musicians/lone bards or even singers and story-tellers adding to the background atmosphere of everything going on, rather than being the foreground ‘featured’ band as it were — might really do the event some good I think!

To do this, I think those of you with experience and creativity in coming up with these kind of topics of conversation, and the ability to roleplay your Hobbits excellently in actually being engaged with those sort of Hobbit conversation topics, can do a great deal of good — if you rekindle a more frequent occurence of starting those kind of conversations with each other.

Keeping it going for at least a good few minutes worthy of a few exchanges back and forth, then taking a break to listen to music; to hear that story/poem being told from last year’s Summer Poetry Competition champion; or to sip your mug of ale, go off to order some more delicious brew and dishes of food, and pipeweed! (I imagined Hobbits throughout the night also going back and forth calling for other Hobbit roleplayers whom happen to be ‘giving out/selling’ actual cooked food items, like Miss Tibba does at Shire Angling Club fishing events, or Master Winzigbel with Ale at the OAKS, and Master Ponso with the excellent variations of pipeweed supply!)

Those who can initiate and keep these kind of moments going are what really make for a lovely part of the Hobbit culture/atmosphere established on Laurelin, and there are so many of you among the different Hobbit kinship, groups, and RP groups that are talented at this from what I’ve observed over the last year. Stick with each other in more ‘frequently’ popping up those kind of Hobbity moments of conversation and chatter at Shire events — while using those quick wits and broad imaginations of yours to welcome in other timid Hobbit roleplayers attending the event for the first time, but maybe not too sure yet about ‘how’ to roleplay a Hobbit on Laurelin. I can foresee a more Hobbity-culture being returned if such actions like this are taken more often by those of you experienced in roleplaying.

Those a little more negligent in remembering to use /say to stay lore-friendly and appropriate by not using ((brackets)) for ‘brb getting coffee’, or calling out the real-world name of the song that doesn’t sound right for a Middle-earth setting — or using emotes too much, and so on… you’ll still have to go onwards with reminding those kind of people, and ‘fighting that good fight’, to keep those sort of things under control as a roleplaying community.

But I do think if by leading (even more frequently) by example, in having Hobbity-conversations throughout all the Shire-Hobbit events throughout the year, the majority of you stepping up to more frequent engage in those kind of moments will really set the ‘tone’ of roleplay that other newcomers and returning Hobbit roleplayers will then pick up and carry out themselves since all the other Hobbit roleplayers around them seem to be so naturally chattering as Hobbits might do with each other when they see each other!

Monkey see, monkey do! But in this case, it’s not just copying what others are doing… it’s actually being inspired and immersed in how all the other Hobbit roleplayers about are staying in-character and having such Hobbity-moments/conversations, even without ‘featured bands/music’ playing, that they themselves quickly pick it up because they see how fun it is, and what kind of special atmosphere it brings when so many Hobbit roleplayers are participating in it!

I will (and have already in some cases) be directing more Hobbit characters/LOTRO players that seem to be new to the server (but showing signs of promise/interest in the sort of Hobbit roleplaying atmosphere all of you on Laurelin have nurtured) towards Green Dragon Fridays, the bi-weekly Hobbit Markets, and other events are less likely music-focused, and truly might be more the sort of ‘chattering Hobbits talking about Shire news/life/Hobbit things events’ I think they would really like to try and truly enjoy once they see what it’s all about. Events like the OAKS and *featured band* Yard Parties already have good publicity by nature of being music events.

But it’s those other more Shire-Hobbity events in the community like Shire Picnics, Story-telling Contests on the Hill, Historical Field Trips to learn Shire/Hobbit history (and lore), the bi-weekly Markets, and Green Dragon Fridays that I’m counting on to deliver. What you all, each of you, have described as having enjoyed about past Green Dragon Fridays (and elsewhere at Shire events) before the music homogenization, and before disruptions in the /say channel grew too frequent — it has been that description of the event, before all these other problems grew bigger, that I’m sticking to telling new players about; and that I’m hoping they will get to see for themselves on their own Hobbit characters after bookmarking the http://www.brambleburygazette.com, and receiving a glowing praise of a description of Green Dragon Fridays and other events like the Bi-weekly Hobbit Markets for Hobbit RP that isn’t just focused on music, but well and truly actual Hobbit bantering, chattering, and Shire life of Hobbits! Don’t let me down!

The thing is, much of the small-scale atmospheric stuff you mention in your post is what we had in the past. Not just at the Dragon, but generally through the Shire and the hobbit RP community. Players spent most of their time on their hobbit characters through the week. There was a meeting hub in Michel Delving square, where we often met to play a song, gossip or just interact with whoever passed by. Events were more intimate. There were numerous burrow-warmings whenever a hobbit brought themselves a new burrow, and the others would come to look and be served an ale and give a gift or three. There were riddle runs, poetry competitions, brewing competitions, pony races, parties in the homesteads, picnics, and so on. Things were much more spontaneous, less static, less music-oriented.

While some of these events are still around, what you have now is a much more fragmented player base (and also a much smaller one). People hop between kinships on different days, or even run between servers to chase the next event. Not least to the numerous music events that are everywere. Variety is reduced. Instant gratification is the norm. There is less continuous effort on keeping the hobbit roleplaying going on Laurelin. And thus, a remarkably stable, fun, friendly and creative community in the Shire has changed. Some may feel for the better, but I am not one of them.

I don’t think it will be possible to get back to that, sadly, the way things are going. However, some things should be possible to do, and there is still fun to be had in the Shire!

That may be so, and there’s a big combination of factors that go into how MMO communities within a server (or within kinships and groups of friends) change over time; some of those factors we likely know of include problems that sneak up on us as relevant/tailored to community we’re involved with… the music-centric dominance of events and /say channel issues being one example for in LOTRO, and on Laurelin. And I’m aware over the years some have surely come and gone as well, sometimes with official goodbyes, most likely many others a very silent disappearance.

*Scratches chin again with furrowed brows*

It may be very cliche and silly of me to say it, but while the ‘golden days’ of Hobbit-Shire mannerisms may be dimmed and be less frequent, I think there are still many of you around that carry on the Hobbity-goodness from the good old days very well. That is important to note, because as an overall MMO community/Roleplaying phenomenon, in the online world — what a Hobbit roleplayer/new player sees today is still a very inspiring feat to have accomplished, if they end up visiting the Shire events and get to meet passionate Hobbit roleplayers like yourselves that are still kicking about still.

*Rubs temples and grimaces*

I cannot change minds if one believes something is not ‘possible to get back to’, and indeed that may very well be true that it isn’t possible to return to the small-scale atmospheric stuff that filled the air throughout Hobbit events throughout the Shire. But I think if enough new players/roleplayers can be ‘caught young’ and introduced to you veteran Hobbit roleplayers and kinships/groups in the Laurelin Hobbit community, and ‘tutored under your wing’ so to speak — they can become engaged and caring Hobbit roleplayers that grow a penchant in their hearts for those types of small-scale Hobbity atmospheric interactions, where instead they will feel more passionate about wanting to just walk around the Shire and do spontaneous Hobbit RP, burrow warmings, gossip, and all those other very fun events you listed.

It seems to be a matter of not enough people ‘buying’ into that mindset and having grown up (as in their time spent in LOTRO) only knowing the more instant gratification trends of music events these days, and hopping between kinships as you mention. But if we want to influence this trend and instead shape a more suitable option to give old and new Hobbit roleplayers — I think ‘replenishing’ the ranks of passionate Hobbit roleplayers whom would really ‘buy’ into the commitment (and fun) of keeping up Hobbit and Shire small-scale interactions all the time on their character, and at events (that aren’t focused on music only) — may help enough to be very worth consideration! And to replenish those ranks, see the previous paragraph — they need only be ‘scouted out and welcomed’ by you experienced Hobbit roleplayers and/or kinships, and from there I think they will be grow into fine long-term Hobbit roleplayers of the old tradition and passion.

There is something going on which has turned whom may have been a passing new/casual player to grow into long-term Hobbit players of the community whom still log on to this day to participate in events, and are keeping alive the ‘old’ ways of spontaneous Hobbit gossiping, impromptu meetings and tea, and so on throughout the Shire, all the time when they are logged on, even if there is less of it now than before overall.

I think whatever was there back then, turning new players into long-term Hobbit roleplayers of the sort we’re wishing for, is still present today. And even though there may be /less/ of you now; it’s the ‘magic ingredient/secret recipe’ to inspire Hobbit roleplayers into a passion for the old ways, that I think you still have. I continue to meet new Hobbit roleplayers or new accounts to LOTRO whom really seem to have the eyes light up with joy when a brief description of Hobbit culture on Laurelin is explained. There are people I think always arriving to the game that will be interested in the sort of Hobbit roleplaying nuances/spontaneous lively feeling so many of you remember in years past. Getting them in touch with you people and discovering how fun it is to be around you and pick up the Hobbity-habits and nature (of the old days) is one way to go about things, in a relatively positive direction I think.

I recommend that Lina and the members of the Grand Order or others who are comfortable doing so send a very friendly and polite /tell to folks who are not following your guidelines, including when they are singing completely un-lore lyrics (like about California or cars). Very possibly they have never read the guidelines about GDF. It is a risk some will be hurt and some will be irate, but most will try to oblige.

Regarding a lot of greetings…hellos and hugs and so ons…I really only felt welcome by a handful for my first year, but now I am greeted by name and hugged and kissed by many, and it makes coming to GDF most welcoming. It makes it one of my most favorite places to be. But when I read again how much it annoys, I don’t know what to do. I think that dear Hobbit friends in Tolkien’s world would greet people by name. Maybe they wouldn’t hug them and kiss them as much as some of us do, but is that really such a bad thing?

I do agree it would be nice if people were conscious of the fact that they are talking over a poet/singer/reciter/news giver though, and keep the hellos and goodbyes to a minimum during those times.

Finally, without expounding on it, I will say that I greatly enjoy the music at Green Dragon Friday and think it would be a shame to cut it way back. On the evenings when that has happened, it has not been as enjoyable.

Oh, and a final finally ;-)…I honestly don’t think most of the folks just dash off arrangements. I know that my own bandleader takes painstaking care with his music. As for lyrics, I spend way too much out of game time on that (though they are not generally for GDF), and that makes it hard to also find the time to come up with a poem or story suitable for GDF (and I always wonder if more than a handful are listening–reading–anyhow).

I will try to accommodate whatever direction GDF moves in, but I am concerned, because I have had an excellent time and it is something I do not like to miss.

I am one of those who sometimes send a politely worded tell to someone who repeatedly violate the guidelines. Most times it goes well, but let’s just say there has been enough grief sent in return over the years, with curses, swearing and generally nasty namecalling. It gets old after a while, and it is the main reason why I sometimes run around with the /anon flag on, because some just don’t stop nagging… With the sheer increased amount of violations, there comes a time when you ask yourself if this is what you’d like to spend your evening doing *grins*. Hence posts like this, because if I can get word of mouth spreading a bit between the regular patrons, it’ll make life so much easier for myself.

Regarding the greeting of others, it may seem a petty thing to be bothered by. It is a natural thing to walk around and say hello and exchange a few pleasantries with friends. So my problem is not so much that it happens, only that there is so much of it.

Here’s how it often goes down:
Player xx enters the inn.
/wave to everyone.
“Hello Green Dragon!”
Lots of hellos in return.
/wave to player yy.
/waves to player xx.
“Hello, player yy!”
“Hello, player xx!”
/hug player yy
/hug player xx
“How are you, player xx?”
“I’m good! You, player yy?”
“I am good too!”
/chuckle
/kiss
etc.
And then all this repeats 20 times when player xx goes around the room, doing the same with everyone there. So what in real-life is a natural exchange of pleasantries, ends up nuking chat box space for everyone in order to accomodate bilateral greetings between two players. So no, not wrong as such from an RP perspective, but I’d personally love it if people just said “hello everyone” when they entered the inn, and everyone greeted back. Quick, efficient and friendly. Then you can of course go into dialogues with others, but hopefully with something that brings more interest to those there than just “hello/bye!”. The ones who really should be greeted in more detail are the first-time visitors, but their visibility tend to drown out a bit in the general huggy friendliness among the regular patrons.

Music will certainly be part of GDF still, but we’ll look at ways to cut back on some of the more excessive stuff, and to include more of other things. As for the event, any changes we do will likely be evolutionary and introduced over some time. So we won’t flip the switch and introduce a new terror RP regime overnight *grins*. We’ll try some things, get views from others on how things develop, and then hopefully we’ll keep things fun, friendly and immersive in the same time!

So, Celtic music it is to be. No more Bywater Bounce. And no more Home, Sweet Home either?

Things being said about chat and emotes seem inconsistent to me:

– Greeting everyone by name etc is a nuisance and clutters up chat and disturbs what goes on at the ‘stage’ (even if this is very much IC).

– It is a pub and people should spread around the room and have separate conversations (I have no disagreement with what Fredin said about this but think it would be hard for me to keep track myself, YMMV).

– too much emote spam

– Not a word has been said about people having imaginary (and one-sided) conversations with the bar-keep and/or cluttering the chat window with ‘/em carefully hangs his cloak on the bended nail next to Mr. Biggleses cloak and noticing the stain on the floor’

Finally, the elephant in the room is there is too much OOC going on and what are we going to do about this? First and foremost of course is leading by eggsample but it seems to not always suffice.

Particularly concerning Tall and Fair folk I think it would be discourteous if we did not welcome them for a single visit each, before they decide whether to roll a Hobbit. On the other hand, if a band where many of its members absolutely knows better wants to brings an Elf on stage for several consecutive Fridays, may I suggest they be told NO after the first time and if that Elf(1) wants to keep coming to GDF, they need to roll a Hobbit.

Devil’s advocating is OK. However, related to music, from the guidelines:
“Try keep your music choices and lyrics somewhat suitable for a night at a hobbit inn. Folk/celtic songs is a good starting point. Drop the blatantly modern-day pop songs, unless you manage to hobbitify them through the use of innovative and in-character lyrics.”

It takes a fair bit of advocating to interpret this as “Celtic music it is to be”. There are other folk traditions that might work in a rural inn setting, and we don’t exclude other styles than that either. With some care, you might play a variety of music styles at the Dragon. This isn’t an absolute statement. What I want is that people put some thought into it. Don’t just stand there playing long strange-sounding songs. Make an effort to have the song work in Middle Earth or the Shire, through lyrics, introductions, or banter with the audience. On the other hand, if you are planning to play a headbangy thrash metal number and screaming modern lyrics, perhaps it is time to reconsider?

As for the chat/emote thing, the problem is related to volume, location and inclusiveness. A person hanging his/her cloak on a peg is one chat line, which is also a rather unobtrusive way of letting people know they are present in the inn. Players discussing near the bar or by the other fireplace may take up some chat box space, but in many cases it includes topics that allow other players to hook into it, to develop roleplaying stories further (if not there and then, then sometime down the line). You might not see their chat bubbles either. When people do the greeting ritual, it often takes up more than 20 lines (inc. several chat bubbles right in the middle of the crowd, no matter what else goes on there) just bilaterally, before they move on to the next player, and it rarely develops beyond “hello”, “how are you?”, “good, you?”.

Once again, though, there are no 100% right answers, and I am not looking for absolutes related to this. What goes into the chat box might depend on many things (not least how many are present and what else is going on at the time). It is all about balance. Sometimes the greeting ritual works, other times it does not, especially when things are busy. For the most part, the guidelines aren’t meant to be dogmatic fixed lines in the sand, but things for players to consider when attending, to keep things fun, interactive and smooth while keeping the intended spirit of the event alive. They are a collection of things that many over the years have stated as problematic when attending, and they are there to give you some guidance to start with. That doesn’t meant the wording is perfect, so I might look into that, based on feedback here or elsewhere.

OOC? Yes, there is too much. Both with and without brackets. How do we stop it? Through a variety of means. I hope that articles like these at least help some word of mouth going between those who regularly attend. If some invite players from other servers to Laurelin in general and GDF in particular, perhaps they could be so good as to let the others know about the RP policy on Laurelin, both related to names and /say chat? If someone are repeat offenders, then a polite tell might be the way.

Related to the “tall and fair” folk, that’s basically the approach we have tried to follow in the past. Typical tells were along the lines of “Hullo, grand that you visit! However, you should know that this is an event for hobbits. If you plan on being a regular visitor, you should roll a hobbit character. Please stay the night, if yer like, but if you could stay a bit in the back and don’t block the view of the locals, that’d be grand.” However, this doesn’t stop some from merrily greeting or even inviting men/elves who come on repeat visits, which is where the wheels come off. Then it doesn’t really help if I or others tell them otherwise, because they get mixed messages.

I have been standing here nailing these comments to Miss Lina’s door (or where-ever this bulletin board may be at her Biscuity Burrow here) for a little too long methinks, and my hands are a little tired, and the hammer getting heavy! But whom knew this most recent writing would garner such attention and discussion from so many Hobbits and community folk! Looks like it’s night-time too, best I get going for now.

All in all there are many more things I agree with, a few less I disagree with, but I cannot tackle them all as much as I should like! *Chuckles*

One of my final brainstorming thoughts since my last comment was that maybe it could help if more ‘reminders’ about the kind of guidelines and expectations for music at Green Dragon Fridays, as well as ettiquette for /say channel can be included in more visible advertisements for Green Dragon Friday at places such as the Bramblebury Gazette, and the Archives. It struck me as a theory, but I think another part-reason why the ‘music-centric’ atmosphere has taken hold so strongly in the last year(s) may also have to do with regular, unique articles being posted to places like the Bramblebury Gazette for each of say, the Yard Parties when a featured band happens, or the monthly OAKS concerts. Those happen at a frequency much more often than articles advertising the Green Dragon Friday (as well as the Bi-weekly Hobbit Markets) receive. The realization that hit me in the head though was how helpful and well-explained most of the guidelines and expectations for GDF and the bi-weekly Hobbit Markets actually ARE — when you look at the existing advertisements for them. But I think a problem has slowly crept up here that because they are weekly-events, they may have faded from regular attention/visits due to how they are presented in layouts for the Gazette and the Archives. (New articles to the Gazette for appear higher on the front page, and being brand new articles of their own, tend to be more likely interesting to read/visit, while information for the GDF there is not so easily obtained outside of the general time/day each week it happens. The Archives has the GDF and Bi-weekly Markets listed under the events column, but they have been there so long that perhaps many readers pass over them because it is such a familiar sight.)

What I figured may work would be to start seeing more frequent articles just generally reminding Hobbits of upcoming GDF days, and Bi-weekly Markets — something to generate a little fresh interest and renewal of interest (as a reminder to old-timer Hobbits) that the event is very much alive and still going on! Checking the Gazette just now, I notice there is already a fresh article written for Lone Bards Friday today, while *I think* it looks like the Archives posting has been updated with some new, updated details and reminders as well about GDF. That is the sort of refresher I’m thinking about. Master Peppy’s article on the Gazette for instance that directly leads to Lina’s thoughts here on the Biscuity Burrow is an example of new written articles/content for Gazette readers to consume, while still giving attention and a refreshing reminder about GDF as an event to consider, and maybe will pop back up into the forefront of Hobbit’s minds and recent memories for a few days and weeks. Do something like this every 2-3 weeks perhaps; a fresh article to the Gazette from a reader/organizer talking about something relating to the GDF, and giving a general excuse to mention again things about the GDF such as expected behavior in conversation (/say), the preferred and encouraged music themes the GDF would like Hobbits to try leaning towards in general.

Again, I think the nature of say the OAKS and Yard Parties, and other music events often getting fresh articles every few weeks (or at least monthly) might be playing a significant influence on making that stuff the ‘most recent thing’ on people’s minds to have read lately… so maybe playing to that pattern — the GDF and other more Hobbit-friendly events like the Markets, and Burrow Warmings, spontaneous tea parties, Shire field trips/picnics, riddle runs and fun pony runs — can also benefit from being more well marketed through frequent articles in the Bramblebury Gazette and the Archives by readers and Hobbits whom visit as patrons regularly.

The writing alone might stir more creativity/fun for those authors doing the writing for articles on the GDF and similar Hobbit-Shire events, and if you combine that with ‘replenishing’ the ranks of passionate Hobbit-folks of the old lively traditions by actively searching them out and taking them under your care to see how wonderful and lively Hobbit life and Shire spontaneous activity can be, they might very well help very much in rebuilding a less dim tradition across the Shire that brings the focus of Shire life back to actual Hobbity manners and spontaneous activity and fun ideas/chatter on the spur of the moment, instead of becoming exposed only to music-band-concert events.

That will be all from me for a good while I think! I wish the very best for a solution to be found that satisfies many parties both old and new, and especially for those of you whom play such important and leading roles as examples of Shire culture, events, and mannerisms/lifestyles. Good luck Hobbits!

I have been reading through it all and would like to offer a different perspective to a few points.

A year ago I was still happy as Larry on my server. I felt comfortable there and it was just the right place for me, a small server with a great community. But I knew we didn’t stand a chance to keep our server as it was too small.
When we knew what servers would remain we didn’t just throw a dart and picked the one it landed on! Now bare in mind please that the option to move to a US server wasn’t available, so we rolled characters on the servers that would remain available.
For those who don’t speak French or English the result looked pretty much like this:

1. Go to a server where you have no clue what people are saying most of the time.
2. Go to a server that is full of I pawn you a’hole and when trying to play music stuff like shit the f up, we don’t want this sh*t here and even worse tirades of insults.
3. go to the RP server where people are friendly and welcoming, with the challenge to try and learn RP and it’s rules.

As you can imagine, the choice wasn’t extremely hard.

We had visited events before the move got opened, among them the GDF, which seemed to be a nice welcoming bunch, and there was a lot of music and lovely story telling.

I think it’s rather easy to just say the music community has changed our event and they’re loud and screaming and stomp their songs out within a few minutes for instant gratification.

A lot of us work very hard on our files and spend a long time to ensure that they’re of high quality. I do admit that I have heard bands that did sound like a bunch of cats swung on their tales, but lets be honest, no matter how bad it sounds, it’s very rare for someone to be brave enough to offer constructive tips, in contrary the vast majority will say bravo and great and well done.

Furthermore a lot of us are trying very hard to learn RP and to blend in, but we all know that there is an awful lot more to RP than just creating a story for your toon and sticking to it! For example I’m not a native English speaker, but my English is fairly good I’d say. However the language used in RP is completely alien to me. It seems to be derived from English but defies all grammar I have ever learnt and quite a few words I have never even encountered in the form they are used ever before. So if some of us new people don’t interact much it’s maybe not because we’re multi boxing, it might be the simple fact that we’re desperately trying to learn that new language by watching others use it! Also most of us have new ones have actually been told that (()) is to be used if you have to say something OOC

Statements like I don’t want to hear lyrics in some foreign language, well I find that rather harsh to be honest, as only a faction of LOTRO players in Europe are blessed with having a server dedicated to their native language, maybe a little consideration for all the rest would go a long way.

What I am trying to say is, maybe the way forward is not finger pointing and stomping down rules, but have a little give and take and educating each other? Sometimes things are simply not as they seem and it might be worth just to ask one or the other question instead of judging a situation.

None of us have any intention to ruin the fun/immersion of others (except the standards trolls of course) but with the server merges none of us can just go back to the “good old times” we might all have to put a bit more effort into it to find the way back where all can enjoy the game the way they love it best.

Fair points, and I am all for “give and take” and showing considerations for others. That has to go both ways, though, and not at the expense of the way the event is set up and the crowd it caters for. I know that the roleplayers on Laurelin have long given a lot, perhaps to a fault.

The blog was written because I saw that GDF behaviour move away from what I’d like. This has happened for a long time, so it is not a server closure thing. I noticed it with the increased “server hopping” a few years back, when more people visited events on other servers. Traditional Laurelin players of old started bringing OOC habits from other places back here, visitors often didn’t read up on the Laurelin RP policy before coming, and it all started adding up to a less immersive game environment.

That’s why I have done a few “line in the sand” posts from time to time, to help players keep the IC RP policy in mind, to help enable the playstyle which drew a lot of us to Laurelin in the first place. It is generally a better way to reach many people than to individually whisper every player attending the event.

The problem right now is that the OOC problem keeps accelerating, to the extent that many hobbit roleplayers feel they don’t have a home in the Laurelin version of the Shire anymore. Not just at GDF, but elsewhere too. And they don’t have anywhere else to go either. Laurelin is the one place they realistically can do IC immersive roleplaying, because of the RP policy.

So I figured this time I’d try tackle the problem rather more up front than the generally gentle posts from before. Honestly, though, there is not much in the way of “finger pointing and stomping down rules” here. I describe the problem as I see it, I remind people about the event guidelines, I say we will look for ways to bring GDF back to its roots. However, I also acknowledge that many people like other playstyles, and that they aren’t necessarily wrong in pursuing them (although, perhaps not in immersive RP venues). There are no personal attacks involved. I attribute a large part of the problem to the way music community has developed, but that’s natural to do since music events have become the norm in LOTRO. Then it is not so strange that we feel the influence from them here either. As controversial blog pieces go, it is pretty gentle.

I know some think that ((OOC chat in brackets)) is great in IC chat channels, but you should know that there are a lot who don’t care much for it either. It is still OOC no matter if it is in brackets, it still breaks the RP policy, and 99 times out of 100 it is remarkably easy to avoid. Instead of ((phone, brb)), just say “I will be right back”. Instead of ((I love that song)). just say “I love that song”. Etc. Better for everyone involved.

GDF will still be a friendly and welcoming place for new players. We have never done any overzealous throwing down of the book on players who make “mistakes” based on the guidelines (rest assured, I could have spent a lot of time policing things, but honestly, where’s the fun in that?). Reminding people about the guidelines usually works. So are you a new roleplayer? Grand! We don’t want only experts, and we love making new friends. Taking time and observing to learn is of course grand. People type at different speeds or need more time formulating things in English, which is fair. The reason I mentioned passive dual-boxing characters is because I know this happens a lot. I’d rather have one reasonably active main character present than a bunch of passive non-controlled avatars. It makes for a more immersive experience.

So do come along, join the fun and help us make it a fun and friendly night at the inn, as it has been in the past. Just make an effort, try keep things IC and ask if there is something you ponder about, and things will go well. As for educating, the discussion based on this blog piece is generally good for making the community move forward to a place where all can enjoy the game. Still, if some would like an RP class in-game (with OOC discussions in a /raid), feel free to say so *smiles*

thank you, what I meant by take and give is not the RP community to give and everyone else to take *grins*
What I mean with it was that some understanding is required from the new arrivarls and some patience will be required from the existing RP’s for us to learn that mountain of new stuff.
Also on a side note, I don’t really tend to go to music event or horse races to learn RP, so unfortunately some of the bad habits I might have picked up did come from the RP events I visited sorry

What I meant with Educating each other kinda goes down the route of the end of your post. If people are willing to give up some of their gaming time to help others learn RP that would be great, but it would be rather tactless of me to expect or request people to do so.
And in turn we could maybe show you that not all music with Bagpipe is bad if it’s well done *giggle*
Celtic folk music is closely connected to Ireland as well as Scotland and an instrument often used in the traditional Celtic folk is Bagpipe for Scottish folk, while uilleann pipes are one of the traditional instruments for Celtic Irish Folk, just wanted to mention that *grin*

I must remind Miss Lina that the Historic Province of France known as Brittany is also Celtic on the French Role Players will inform those of us that are not French. So this being the case I believe that the Folk Music of Brittany should be included as well.